How much money can you make promising to get satellites into orbit with a slingshot?

American Thinker ^ | 3 Dec, 2021 | Mick Rich

[MtnClimber]

Why not use birds to fly the satellites into orbit. I would use African Swallows.

[struggle]

What is the airspeed of a satellite-laden African Swallow?

[wbarmy]

I don’t know. AIEEEEEE

[jughandle]

I was picturing a carrier catapult a couple miles long..

“Spinlaunch will subject the satellites to ten thousand times the force of gravity,”

[MtnClimber]

The forces from a rocket launch are a big consideration in satellite with weight limiting the mechanical design. This would seem magnitudes worse.

[Tagurit]

Maybe they could add voter registration and mail-in ballot boxes at their launch site for public support.

[PIF]

Have your African Swallows been jabbed?

[sonova]

Seems like more of a trebuchet than a slingshot.
Agreed a far-fetched concept. No pun intended. Well maybe a little..

[Tupelo]

Politicians are in most cases, pretty ignorant and corrupt. The rest are simply corrupt. They are gullible to any scheme that promises high tech and lots of money flowing into the county or state or even the country simply because they know that a lot of that money will end up in a plain manila envelope in their pocket.
Spinlaunch is no different from Solendra or any of the EV manufactures or solar cell or even malls and manufacturer’s outlets. Operators like the Brothers Yaney cannot operate without corrupt and gullible politicians, mostly very wealthy politicians by the time they retire. Think Obama, Pelosi, McConnell and a myriad or others. 435 in the House and 100 in the Senate for starters.

[jughandle]

The G’s from one of those slingshot rides are bad enough! I can’t even fathom 10,000x. I’m no expert but I’d imagine that would crush a car pretty quick.

[\/\/ayne]

[one guy in new jersey]

How is the payload going to survive the enormous centrifugal force that would unavoidably accompany the process of achieving escape velocity prior to launch via trebuchet?

[Politically Correct]

How about ATO (Airship To Orbit)?
These guys are doing it all on their own dollar (or donation). No government subsidy and so far they are making good progress.

The physics is just a little iffy as to whether or not it can really be done with current technology. But, that's what research is all about. It would be a really cheap way to space if it can be made to work.

[pelican001]

The launce speed that they quoted was 5,000 mph. That would be nowhere near the speed required for a satallite in orbit (17,000 mph).

That is without even considering the huge(!) aerodynamic friction that the satallite would see on assent. The thing would look like a flamming meteor going up.

[cyclotic]

The project suffered delays when celebrated rocket engineer Mike Hughes died while trying to launch his steam powered rocket

[Wilhelm Tell]

Yeah, I would not want to be in one of those little buildings when the thing disintegrates. I would want to be 100 miles away at least.

[ThunderSleeps]

Yeah, 10,000 gs?! About the only thing that will survive launch is a solid metal sphere. So great if you want to launch calsats, kind of useless for any real satellite.

[MtnClimber]

Satellites need a specific velocity to maintain the orbit they are in. This speed is high enough that satellites burn up when they contact the upper atmosphere. In this case the slingshot velocity would need to be much greater than the orbital velocity to account for atmospheric drag and the change in potential energy between the Earth’s surface and the orbital height. That higher velocity would be at the dense part of the atmoshere right at the Earth’s surface. Preventing it from melting in the first 100,000 feet would be a big challenge.

[HYPOCRACY]

Just use anti-gravity. Not that hard. Like frozen magnets and shit.